Music Magazine write up

In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of media products?

When developing my magazine I decided to keep a constant colour scheme and theme throughout, as shown in other magazines I have looked at. For example, in “Q magazine”, the colour scheme is red, white and black, with Times New Roman font. In my case I used the colour scheme of green and purple with Arial Black. I got the idea to do the diagonal lines behind the magazine title and logo from behind the title in the April 2009 edition of “Q”.

After looking at several magazines contents pages, I found that most usually have a few large pictures and then the titles of the articles are elsewhere on the page, without a picture. I decided to integrate this into my magazine as it seemed to be the trend. My mode of address is casual and chatty, which is used in magazines such as “KERRANG” magazine. I have done this by being the target audience for my magazine is between 15-25 years. This is represented in what bands are featured in the magazine, such as “Keane” and “The Prodigy”. It is also represented by the colour scheme Magazines such as “Q magazine” use very light colours and the writing and pictures are spread out whereas magazines such as “KERRANG” and “NME” use very dark and dense colour’s, which matches my magazine layout as I have used colour’s such as black and dark purple. These colours reflect the style of the music. Also the pictures that I have used in my magazine were taken at gigs and were therefore would look out of place in a bright coloured page.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I found my size of audience from http://www.nrs.co.uk/. By looking at similar magazine statistics such as “NME”, I could see which audience has the biggest readership, which I learnt was 15-44 and male. NME has a readership of 301,000 per issue 261,000 readers are age 15-44, and 230,000 of these are male. I accommodated this into my magazine by not only the content and bands included but also by the colour scheme and the general appearance. I have done this by bands being include which would appeal to younger audiences such as the Prodigy or Everything Everything. The colour scheme is dark and multi coloured which would appeal to the teenage demographic rather than the 45 and over, who would prefer lighter colours.

What kind of media institution might distribute my media product and why?

Places such as news agents and supermarkets may be willing to stock and distribute my magazine. This is because my magazine caters for many genres of music from rock to alternative to pop. This would be attractive as it could be classed

as unique as not very many magazines have such a wide variety of music. Distributing companies such as http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/ may also be willing to distribute my magazine. It would fit in the portfolio as it accommodates many music genres and therefore would appeal to many age ranges and tastes.

How did I attract/address my audience?

Before I started to create my music magazine cover, contents and double page spread, I had to see what the majority of people wanted. I did this by conducting a questionnaire with closed answers. Examples of these questions were what are your favorite artists? Or how much would you pay for a music magazine. I then put the results into a graph to make it easier to see what was popular.

In this example it is easy to see that rock and R’n’B were the 2 favourite genres, and as these are completely different styles of music I decided to do a more rock style magazine but with articles in the pop style so the R’n’B lovers were not alienated.

What have I learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I used macromedia fireworks to construct my magazine. I learned to use the features present on the software for example, glow, bevel and emboss, hue, and saturation. These were used to make try and make my magazine look as professional as possible.

The large picture on my front cover I chose was not the correct colour and brightness I wanted, so firstly I changed the brightness of the picture to a darker shade and then adjusted the hue to a slightly yellow tint which made it turn out multicolored. I was still not happy with how the band members looked so I drew the lasso tool around each one and changed the hues of them individually, which made them stand out more. This is before and after the edit:

What are your favorite genres? (state up to six)

RapRockPopIndieDnBRnB

I then integrated this image into the cover as so:

On this front cover I used a variety of techniques found in macromedia fireworks. Firstly, as present throughout the pages, the headings and important texts have applied emboss and flattened the effect, making it just a white edge. I also used the blur tool on the green and purple diagonal lines and the bottom right corner of the picture featured at the bottom of the screen as this side was lighter and the blur took the harshness out of the edge. I used similar techniques in the contents page and the double page spread. By using the same editing techniques I tried to make sure my magazine had a theme running throughout and made it flow.

Evaluation

Overall, by researching and creating my magazine, I have not only learned to use macromedia fireworks, for example what editing tools do what, but I have also learnt about what type of music magazines are most popular and also how to

construct a magazine myself. After I finished constructing my magazine, I asked 20 people what they liked and disliked about my pages. The majority liked the general aesthetic of pages and the fact that there was a theme of the same colours and effects used throughout. Most also liked that it looked differently to most music magazines, as there was lots of colour and the pictures were large and eye catching. However, about half thought that the front cover needed more articles advertised on the large picture on the front cover. This was because they thought it was a bit open and spaces could have been filled by other articles on the other hand, other people liked this as it made the cover look unique as most magazines such as “NME” or “KERRANG” were cluttered and made it hard to see the main picture. They also disliked the interview on the double page spread. They said that it was a bit short and was written in quite a formal manner. Concerning the criticism about the open spaces on the front cover, I set out to make the pictures take up most of the space, this is shown on the contents and the double page spread also. I wanted this as it felt more pleasing to the eye and easier to look at. If it was cluttered, it makes it hard for the reader to know what to look at and by making it open and having large pictures makes it easier on the eye and more appealing. I do agree with the criticism of the interview. If I were to write it again, I would write in such a way that it felt friendlier and it connected with the reader better. I would also add more questions as there is quite a bit of space in between the questions and by adding more questions, it would not only look better but it would also mean there is more content for the reader.

In my opinion, my magazine well suited its target audience. It was colourful, but used dark colours which are found more commonly in present teenage music magazines. I also think that the artists present inside my pages suited to a younger audience as they mainly consisted of rock and alternative. I also thought my use of text was successful. This is because I liked how the text looks with the outer emboss. I also like how it does not take up to much of the page and it only covers small amounts of the pictures. I believe, however, that my mode of address was not as successful. Writing, such as in the double page spread, was quite formal and did not match my target audience of young teenagers. If I had added an editors notes section in the contents page, I would have been able to write in a much more casual way, seen in such magazines as “KERRANG” where it is written as if the editor was talking to you as a friend rather than a reader. My use of images turned out to be mainly a success. I achieved my goal of keeping them relatively clear and filled a large proportion of the page. However, the picture for the Helio Sequence article is slightly pixelated but from the selection of photos I had, this was the best so there was nothing I could do about this. Lastly I think that my use of tools available on macromedia fireworks was varied and I took full advantage of the techniques available.